You Gotta Be Fast
by Del Schiz
Summary: Poor Clash. Always striving, and never in the spotlight. A little fillertype fic to show where she was coming from before her abrupt appearance in the Starbright arc.


"You Gotta Be Fast"  
a misfits fanfic by d.l. schizoauthoress 

_In this world there's one thing you need  
You gotta be fast, you gotta be fast  
If you wanna stay in the lead,  
You gotta be fast; you gotta be fast; you gotta be fast_

_The world belongs to the major movers  
The ones who keep up a relentless pace  
If you aren't up to the fast maneuvers  
You're gonna wind up in second place  
You're gonna wind up with egg on your face_

Clash had never really been on the fast track for anything, much less fame and fortune. Growing up in Mulberry, Tennessee was all well and good, but it hardly promised a girl more than a stable, predictable marriage with two kids and endless days in the PTA, baking cookies and keeping house. Clash hated it. She hated it because she'd seen what it had done to her mother, Mrs. Prudence Montgomery.

Prudence was worn down, her dark purple hair -- the only thing that Clash had gladly inheirited from her, and the only wildness about her now -- streaked heavily with grey and her health failing. It was mostly stress-related disorders (Clash had four brothers, and she was no angel!), including a rather painful ulcer, and a bad case of arthritis almost all of Prudence's joints.

Clash swore that her mother's fate would not be her own. She left home at age eighteen, trailing behind her twenty-year-old cousin Vivienne. Vivienne, whom Clash hated with a passion, had acquired the nickname and the hobby "Video" at a young age, and was heading for Hollywood to make a name for herself. Clash cut off most of her long hair and dyed it bright pink, with splashes of aqua-blue -- symbolically cutting all ties with her mother and the boring life Clash hated -- and drove after Video.

Of course, since Video had taken a plane, she reached Los Angeles first. But Clash roared in a week later, in a faux fur coat as glaringly green as her vintage car, wearing wild makeup to disguise the soft, cute features that made her look even younger than eighteen. Clash immediately hit the talent agencies, looking for bit parts in movies or extras-casting in music videos. She managed well enough for a while, playing punkettes in roles that amounted to little more than scenery, picking up trade secrets about changing her look. The high point of this part of her life had to be playing an extra in the club scene of the first "Terminator" movie in 1983.

Not long after that, however, she was assigned to a music video being directed by none other than Video. Video had been amazed to see her, and angry as well. She claimed that "Constance" would be impossible to work with -- to which Clash vehemantly denied even being the "Constance" that Video was talking about. (Video was the only one who called her Constance anymore; Clash had long since abandoned her birth name, dismissing it as far too dull. Clash was sure that Video only used it to remind her of her humble beginnings.) In the end, though, Clash lost out to some trashy-looking blonde with long hair and a penchant for dark eye makeup. The band thought that Clash didn't quite fit their image.

'Oh, well,' Clash thought, as she packed up her gear, 'who needs those Poison losers, anyhow?'

That night, she went to a concert at the Storehouse that changed her life.

----

The clothes. The hair. The music.

The Misfits were It. Clash was sure of it. The Misfits were going to be huge, and she just had to be a part of that.

She managed to get a ticket for the Battle of the Bands that December, even though it was in the nosebleed section. When Jem and the Holograms stole the show, Clash was outraged. She plotted to head over to World Studios as soon as the Jem movie was in production, and find a way to sabotage it.

Clash used the fact that both she and Video could be called "Miss Montgomery" to get onto the lot. It was a sure bet that little miss Video, such a hot commodity on the music video scene, would be used on a movie where the cast was mostly rock stars. Clash wasn't lying by calling herself Miss Mongomery, and since the security guard was dumb enough to give her the pass without asking for ID, she didn't feel bad about taking advantage of him.

She'd been surprised and pleased to see the Misfits on the set. After asking a quick question of one of the workers (who took her for a concert-scene extra), she found out that the Misfits were now the co-stars of the Jem movie.

'There is some justice in the world!' Clash thought happily, heading over to Pizzazz. What she didn't know was that her life was about to pick up speed, a lot of speed all at once. She might be able to keep up for a little while, but Clash never had been destined for the fast track to fame and fortune.

Never.


End file.
